
Class 





W A.E A DISCIPI^INE 



S E R M o ]sr 



I'HK ACHED IK 



CALVARY CHURCH, 



SAN FRANCISCO 



THANKSGIVINCx DAY. NOVEMBER 24 1864. 



By CHAS. WADSWOKTH. 



Pu1)lislir<I by Request. 



S A N F H A i\ CISCO : 
^ M H. BANCROFT & COMPANY. J^ 

m^ — - -j^jM, 



tfciA- 



W^AR A DISCIPLINE. 



A 



SERMON" 



PREACHED IN 



CALVARY CHURCH, 



SAN FRANCISCO, 



ON 



THANKSGIVING DAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1864. 



By CHAS. WADSWOETH, 



Pnblisbed by Request. 



SAN FRANCISCO: 
H. H. BANCROFT & COMPANY. 

1864. 



tHSE 
• Wiif 






Jk 






Turubull & Smith, Printers, 612 Commercial Street. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



San Fraxcisoo, Nov. 25th, 1864 
Bev. Chas. Wadsworth, D. D. 

Retv. and Dear Sir, — Having listened with great pleasure to your discourse on the occas- 
ion of our Kational Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, 1864, and believing that the wide diffusion of the 
truth therein, will do much good, we earnestly solicit the same for publication. 



Yours, very truly, 



H. P. COON. 
H. H. HAIGHT. 
THOS. H. SELBY. 
CHAS. CLAYTON. 
E. B. BABBITT. 
H. II. NEWHALL. 
JAS. a ROBERT& 



GESTLEJtEN : 

In compliance with your request, and deferring to your Judgment of any possible good 
its publication may subserve, I herewith Inclose this imperfect sermon. I need not say 
that it is a mere handful of fragments ; a brief hour's discursion on so broad a field of 
thought could not well be more. As such, the manuscript is submitted to your disposal. 
With every consideration of respect and esteem, 
I remain, very sincerely, 

Your friend and servant, 

CHARLES WADSWORTB, 
To the 

Hex. H. P. Coon, and others. 



SEEMON. 



"Evert Branch that beareth Frctt, He purgeth it that it mat bring 

FORTH MORE FrUIT." — Johu XV : 2. 

The text is metaphorical of husbandry. It describes the 
process whereby the fruit of a vineyard is improved and in- 
creased. It is appropriate to this occasion, because these annual 
thanksgivings were originally designed, and should always serve, 
to quicken our gratitude to Almighty God for the ripened fruits 
of the earth. They answer, in our religious life, to the Feast of 
Harvest, under the old dispensation. And such festivals are be- 
fitting and beautiful. They were so, pre-eminently, in regard of 
the Jews, because, as a nation, they were farmers. Peasant and 
prince, in their respective spheres, were alike husbandmen. AMiile 
a small portion of the tribes on the eastern side of the Jordan led 
a purely pastoral life, the great body of the people were emphati- 
cally tillers of the soil. Their peculiar civil polity was intended 
to make them such. Not only did each tribe possess a particular 
province, but each family had, as well, a specific inheritance which 
could never be wholly alienated. No great land holding aristo- 
cracy, therefore, could obtain permanently among them. The 
poorest Jew held his freehold by irrevocable title. If, for a time, 
haply or wilfully alienated, it reverted unincumbered to him or 
his at the year of Jubilee ; and every husbandman felt that all 
improvement of the estate was for the benefit of himself and his 
children. 

Under this peculiar encouragement to labor, the whole land 
attained the highest agricultural condition. Naturally exceed- 
ingly fertile, it became, through culture, the garden of the world. 



The peculiar productions of all zones were found in its widely 
diversified soil and climate ; grains of all species grew on its sunny 
plains ; plantations of olives covei'ed its saady hills ; its low, clay 
soils nourished groves of stately palm ; its sharp mountain ridges 
were purple with rich clusters of the vine ; even its precipitous 
rocks were made fertile by means of artificial embankments, so 
that, in the autumn time, corn-fields and vineyards and orange 
groves and forests rose, in ascending circles, from valley to hill- 
top, covering the whole landscape with a lavish beauty, until the 
old Canaan, in its loveliness, seemed a fitting type of heaven. 
And to such a people the Feast of Harvest was, of course, 
a glorious festival. Its annual return woke the whole laud into 
gladness. Fair and befitting were the exulting rites of that old 
holiday, when, from every hamlet and home, from glens of the 
vine and the olive, and valleys golden with corn, the thou- 
sands of Israel went up to appear before God in Zion, filling the 
land, as they passed, with those old choral harmonies : — " Praise 
the Lord, Jerusalem ; i^raise thy God, O Zion. For He hath 
strengthened the bars of thy gates ; He hath blessed thy children 
within thee. He maketh peace m thy borders, andfilleth thee with 
the finest of the wheat ; He hath not dealt so ivith any nation. 
Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him 
in the firmament of His power. Praise Him with the sound of the 
trumpet. Praise Him loith the timbrel and dance ; kings of the 
earth and all])eople, princes and all judges of the earth ; both young 
men and maidens, old men and children. Let every thing thai hath 
breath jyraise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord." 

Nor even in this aspect, as simple harvest festivals, do these 
annual Thanksgivings beseem us less than the Jews. We that 
live in cities sometimes forget this. We think of agricultural 
fairs and harvest-homes as things especially appropriate in rural 
districts ; while in the progress of the arts, and manufactures, 
and commerce, we feel a deeper interest. But we should remember 
that even these have their springs in, and depend upon, husbandry. 
Suspend, for a single twelvemonth, the world's practical agriculture 
and it would become a great sepulchre. Therefore, the sailor on 
the sea, the artizan in his shop, the merchant on exchange, the 
orator on the platform, the statesman in the cabinet, the noble 
in the palace, the king upcjn the throne arc all as deeply and per- 
sonally interested in husbandry, and should be as thankful for its 
success, as the humblest tiller of the soil. 



Such feasts of harvest, therefore, become all men ; and 
not least of all, Calitornians. First, manifestly, among our 
occasions of praise are our agricultural blessings. California 
has a thousand things to be thankful for. In regard of manifold 
interests, a bright and boundless future lies before her. 

Her mines are inexhaustible. The whole land shows like a 
cabinet which the great Father has stored for the delight of his 
children. Yea, like a treasure vault, whose riches might 
suffice for the traffic of the world. Verily, in comparison with 
other lands, is the old prophecy fulfilled : — " For brass God hath 
given us gold ; and for iron, silver ; and for wood, brass ; and for 
sto7ies, iron." California may well be thankful for her treasures of 
the earth. 

She may be thankful, too, for her commerce. Already, she is 
the most important commercial State of the North Pacific ; and 
this relative position she must maintain, for she can have no rival. 
So that, in that hastening time, when her population shall have 
marvellously increased ; and, the cost of labor being cheapened, 
her canons and cities shall hum with the wheels and spindles of 
her own manufactures, and her vast mineral wealth be economic- 
ally and thoroughly developed ; and more than all, when the im- 
mense products of the East shall flow through her Golden Gate, 
as the navies of the Pacific pour their treasures at her feet, and a 
thousand rushing chariots, along pathways of iron, bear through 
her Sierran passes all this measureless traffic ; then the com- 
merce of California will be the grandest in the world. 
Over her mineral and her commercial resources, may our fair 
State well keep thanksgiving. 

And yet, second to nothing, should be her glory in her 
agricultural promise. Her harvest will, in the end, be of 
more value than her mines. Soil, atmosphere, climate — 
each a marvel in itself — combine, in this behalf, almost un- 
to miracle. They have already rendered her vegetation the 
wonder of the world — for hero are clusters heavier than EschoPs, 
and fruits more abundant than Arcadia's, and flowers more wonder- 
fully fair than Paistum's or Sharon's. And when, in her swift pro- 
gress, she shall have come to that period of repose and culture, 
when wealth sinks from its importance as an end, to be reckoneil 
only for its uses, and her merchant princes shall delight to beauti- 
fy her glorious scenery — building amid gardens like Eden, palaces 



8 

to enshrine her new types of art, and embosom her new social life 
— then, in that long, fair, pastoral holiday, will her simple land- 
scape scenery, and agricultural wealth render her, most of all, the 
world's envy. And it shall come to pass, if not in your day, yet in 
the days of your children, that the grand old harvest feast of Judea 
will be fully rivalled here, and your loudest songs, like her's, be 
these autumnal thanksgivings for the divine love that crowns the 
year with radiant blossoms and ripened fruits ot the earth. 
It is eminently proper, then, to observe these anniversaries in 
the spirit which originated them — public gratitude unto God at 
the ingathering of the land's ripened harvests. 

Meanwhile, in each succeeding year, these Thanksgiving Days 
have, by common consent, assumed, more and more, the character 
of national thanksgivings for great national blessings — seasons in 
which the preacher in the sanctuary is expected to discourse es- 
pecially on our civil and national reasons for praise. And as ap- 
propriate in both respects we have chosen our text. It befits a 
simple harvest festival, for it is metaphorical of husbandry. It 
befits our civil and national condition, as a stricken and suffei*- 
ing nation ; because, under this figure of a pruning-knife, it pre- 
sents even national sufferings in merciful aspects, and reveals 
God's hidden meaning of love in these phenomena of disturbance. 

Now, we need not say that to the world this day, our country 
presents almost only aspects of disaster. The vision is just that 
upon which the great statesman of New England prayed that his 
eyes might never look : — " A sun shining on the broken fragments 
of our once glorious Union — States dissevered, discordant, belli- 
gerent — a land rent with civil feuds and drenched with fratricidal 
blood." We are observing our National Festival in conditions 
which, some men think, call for a national fast, as a more seemly 
service ; and our praises will ascend largely from desolate house- 
holds and sorrowing hearts. Nevertlicless, a thoughtful christian 
will find, even in our present circumstances, abundant occas- 
ion of praise. Though suflfering many things, yet many blessings 
remain to us. Our national aspects might be much worse than 
they are. Surely it is a matter of praise before God, that, through 
the length and breadth of our land, the cities are not smouldering 
ruins, and the fields red with blood ! Even this thought were 
enough to inspire our thanksgivings. But my text gives us 
another and a better ; for it teaches us to regard even our disast- 



9 

ei's as niercifnl, and to find occasion of jnaisc. ovoii. in the scfiii- 
ing judgments of" God. 

The text speaks of the benefits of a pruning-kmfe \ — of iirocosscs 
of cutting, with a purpose of good ! And such, it is the privilege 
of faith to believe, are the afflictions' we are experiencino- • we are 
to regard this sword of war as but the divine pruning-knilV;, purg- 
ing unto greater faithfulness a grand vine (,)f (lod's planting. 
Of course, we are not thinking to speak of war as, self-considered, 
a blessing. Oh no ! God forbid ! For according to all the teach- 
ings of His word it is evil, and evil only. Nevortheless, in all the 
histories of God's dealings with nations, war is the very evil by 
which He hath wrought out their good. 

Sure we are, God permits it, overrules it, manages it for His 
own glory. We may find fault with it, abhor it, anathematize it, 
pray against it ; yet, as believers in a divine Providence, we 
must accept it as a divine dispensation toward us — either purely 
a judgment^ — or a judgment meant mercifully — i.e. — either an axe 
at the root of an evU tree to be cut down — or a pruning-knife amid 
overgrown branches, thai there may be increase of the fruit. 

But there is no man here prepared to regard these disas- 
ters as positively destructive. Surely, God hath not yet laid his 
devouring axe at the root of the tree ! We are afflicted indeed ; 
we are in straits ; and the nations of the earth laugh us to scorn ; 
as if the divine Feller had gone forth against our glorious tree, 
whose leaves were fair, and whose fruit much, and whose branches 
gave promise unto children's children, and unto the children of 
strangers, of a blessed shelter to the end of time ; of this 
goodly tree, declaring : — " Behold I will hew it down, and 
cid off its branches, and shake off its leaves, and scatter- its frail; 
therefore, let the heas/s get away from under it, and the bird.-< from 
its branches.'''' 

But we do not believe this. This American tree — this 
grand growth of God's mountains of love — is not yet to be cut 
down. No great nation ever perished in its youth, or on the 
tlireshold of its progress. And we shall not thus perish. Indeed 
this tree is not evil that God's axe should fell it. We are sick of 
this priestly and pharisaic cant about the supreme wickedness of 
this nation. The history of the American people, up to the hour 
of this fearful visitation, was the purest national history the world 
ever read. No pages, elsewhere, are so illustrated with the great 



10 
1 v^ntHotism philanthropy, and 

>'"'™'-/-'r .' t:::;; : arts 0%'oci.n, o..o.ious *„ 

practical godliness ! bmelj w ^^ ^^^.^^^ „1^ 

Line wrath ; if «°«/^J.,,''°;::/lt a mtle with us 1 And 
,„„„stvous de^lf'^^";',.:; tt^t „„ enAlem this day is not a 
therefore, we judge -""""""y *^'^°,^„,.,,,, ,„d bringing forth no 
great tree, which hav„,goengcuU„ ^^, ^^^^^.^,^,^g ,,, ^ ^ut 

fruit, or fru.t only ev I, ;;!^r;,\^^ ,, ,,„tiness of its growth. 

"::::;« wi,,.urs.«.-en,.^^ 

discourse-that these aflhct.ons -'^'^^^ j^nefioent i^uning- 
„„, ,„,. una God: *-*-°^7. "f t,*„uuderstanlhow,iu 
tnife. Fo>- ->-ly tl^- '^ ™-ITce here i often a great blessing 
,,e wordings of ^™-|--<'; .^Tcurse of ,*.• sprang the 
even in a «"'■««-'''''" ""J ,^, ^ d,<^A, the great evil, did 
great blessing '"''"f *7'" ,, ' "Iflnite o-ood ! And thus, in re- 
Christ accomplish '■*»P"°",^^";;^l"';:i;;:ip,es,.f human nature, 
gardotthisscourge-wa. l ^ ^ l commercial prosperity, 
developed by long contined-tcu^^^ ^^_^^ ^_^^ _^ 

more to be feared than tlio. ^^_^ ^,^^.^^^^1 ^^^,,. 

patriotic battle; and as we '™\f3V„„.i„. ,vils which this 
acter, we shall ^'-^f'^rrr i d":i'-^:er|.-own branches of 

sidev a few c.f them. And 

F„s.-Co.e<o».n«-that fouMust of Manimoj^^^ 

.,ehovah ranks -"^.f-'^^^'-X to 1 1- timeof this visitation, 
,vil thing in the nndst f "^'^ „;,.„„ people on earth, 
we were fast '^^'^ Jf^j:, oiuclvilLiio: that we were 
So intensely material had b,c , |,.„,„ ^nd sentimental bar- 
,,„pfedtosaytl.teventh^,W^^^^^^ 

barism were bette.. i , ^ .^^gt of all social 

birth and blood, we w<-re l^anguia mg ^ ^^,y_ ,,,. 

.^^s-.n..^su..^^c^^^^^^^ making, had become 
„i„g, anything, ''^'-J**"' J Ability ^'M was fast becoming 
..rounds ■''■«'-."; ;->r:r*^ltn;ro.led our franchises, elected 



11 

unto the world, and consciously unto oui'selves, we were fast sink- 
ing into the unleavened sordidness of avarice ; and this insane 
greed of gain was working our ruin ; for by an immutable law of 
life, wealth begets luxury, and luxury palsies the strength and digs 
the grave of nations. 

Now I need not pause to show philosophically and historically 
how war is naturally, and hath ever practically proved itself, the 
antagonist of covetousness. Not only does it destroy the idol, by 
consuming its substance, but it destroys the idolatry, by calling 
into play higher social instincts — the craft, the subtlety, the sor- 
didness of unscrupulous avarice giving place to the self-denial, the 
self-sacrifice, the chivalrous daring of patriotism and soldiership ; 
and thus, evil as it is, it is yet the smaller of two evils. Better a 
thousand times the wild torrent from the mountains, sweeping 
away the corn and vines of the thrifty husbandman, than the stag- 
nant morass breeding deadly malaria ! Even these blasts of war 
quicken some of our better impulses. We feel now that life has 
nobler aims than to build fine houses, and drive fast horses, and 
beautify large estates, and leave much wealth unto children — that 
courage, and manliness, and patriotism, and the preservation of a 
strong national life, and the compelled respect and homage of the 
world are of more worth than all the prizes grasped by the with- 
ered hand of avarice ! The result, at least, is certain. Our golden 
god is being fast crush<^d under the iron chariot of conflict — the 
dust of our molten calf is making life's waters bitter. Our vine 
was wasting its vigor in an overgrown branch of covetousness ; 
and Jehovah is pruning it with His terrible knife — War ! 

Secondlt — Lawlessness — a wide-spread, popular independence 
of, or restlessness under, wholesome restraint, was another of our 
fast growing evils. Our liberty, through its very greatness, was 
fast becoming license. Many of our laws lay dead letters in the 
statute book. Property and life, in our midst, were fearfully in- 
secure. Even family government — the great source of all civil 
restraint — was fast disappearing, under the practical working of 
the Young-American theory of exclusive self-government. To the 
philosophic statesmen of Europe our free institutions seemed 
tending to anarchy. There appeared in our body-politic no resist- 
less central power, to control and conserve. Ilcuce arose, not un- 
naturally, in our midst this grand heresy of State sovereignties — 



12 

the lawlessness of the individual man becoming the lawlessness of 
the masses — the selfish individualism of the old colonial and con- 
federate eras, transmitted as hereditary virus, to disorder the 
functions of the new constitutional life. It has disordered it from 
the first. This war is to be regarded scarcely as a new thing. 
We were not at peace before. For the last fifty years the condi- 
tion of these States has been a mighty composite antagonism — a 
seething caldron wherein mingled all elements of hot strife. Wit- 
ness our national legislature ; our national elections ! What 
scenes like the barbaric conflict of armed champions in our na- 
tional Capitol ? What excitements like the mingling tides of 
armed battle in the exercise of our franchises 1 What tearful 
questionings of our political future at home ! What exulting pro- 
phecies abroad of our hastening destruction ! And do you think 
to call all this a condition o^ peace ? Alas, no ! It was at best 
but an armistice — the peace only of a millennium wherein the 
lamb's heart was chill with terror, and the recumbent lion was but 
crouching for his spring ! This war is not the creation of our day 
nor of our generation. It is but the development of latent ele- 
ments, mighty from the first. It was, even then, a war of hot 
breath, of angry words, of wrestling opinions — the strife of fierce 
and untamed spirits ! — the scattering, in our fair heritage, of the 
fabled dragon's teeth, of which these bristling bayonets of armed 
men are but the natural harvest. 

I repeat it. Impatience of restraint has been our great national 
evil. It grew with our ever-growing idolatry of popular sove- 
reignty, and culminated in this inevitable heresy of State sover- 
eignty. For a heresy it is ; its absurdity is apparent in its 
simple statement. The very word " Constitution " implies the 
vital connexion of parts in the same body — the condition or laws 
of one individual, indivisible, organic life. If therefore, our Fed- 
eral Union be no more than a conglomerate of States, rounded by 
outward pressure and cemented by selfish interests, then it never 
had a constitution, nor has it any thing to glory in ; for the " Six 
Nations of Indians " confederated for purposes of mutual defence, 
and roaming in lawless savagcness their native wilds, were as 
truly and nobly a " North American Republic," three hundred 
years ago. 

Surely this theory of government was false ; and its inevitable 



result was sharp sectional antagonism. For what, as thus consid- 
ered, was our nationality ? A constellation of States, held omni- 
potently together by a supreme central law, and revolvino- in 
beneficent harmony through the firmament of heaven ? No, indeed. 
It was only a kennel of States, hunting their prey together throu"-h 
a wild jungle of compromises, ready to part at a moment, if their 
paths separated, or to spring madly at each other's throats, if 
those paths crossed 1 And why should not our national legislature 
be a scene of barbaric strife, and the exercise of our national fran- 
chises convulse the whole land 1 

This unconstitutional lawlessness was a terrible evil ; and the 
natural result — yea, the positive and grand design of this war is 
forever to remove it. In its origin in the popular American mind 
and heart it had no meaner, no other end. It was not a war for 
pride, for passion, for gain, for conquest, for selfish interests, for 
personal ambition, for the jealousies of States, or the rivalries of 
regions. Oh no 1 It was a war simply for constitutional life — 
constitutional government — for the enthronement of national law 
— one resistless, controlling, central power — one great, sympathiz- 
ing, supreme popular heart, sending through the whole body-politic 
the tides of a common healthful life 1 This was at least its aim, 
and if it accomplish anything, this must be its end. For, whatever 
else we may lose in this fiery trial, if we come forth with a 
national life at all, it will be with a common, mighty, constitu- 
tional life — a government not only the freest and fairest, but the 
most immutable and irresistible the world ever saw. Thereafter 
forever, will Law, as a tremendous and inexorable power, be en- 
throned in the midst of us ; and we shall be law-abiding and blest. 
Our vine of Liberty was shooting forth a monstrous branch 
of license, and Jehovah is pruning it with his fearful knife — War I 

Thirdly — Political Atheism was another, and the most terrible 
of our fast growing evils. Under the specious plea of separating 
Church and State, we were attempting a practical divorce of God 
and our Government. We were not merely irreligious ; we had 
become infidel ; we were fast becoming atheist. The divine law 
was not recognized in our high places of authority ; the divine 
favor was scarcely regarded among our elements of prosperity* 
Nay, so positively idolatrous had become our trust in our wonder- 
ful nationality that we regarded it not only independent of divine 



14 

purposes, but indispensable to them : — " "Where " cried the infidel, 
" shall God raise up an instrument to destroy us ? " — " How" cried 
the believer, " shall God evangelize the nations without us ? " 

And this political atheism which has destroyed so many- 
nations, and will destroy any nation, was growing on our fair na- 
tional vine like a monstrous fungus ; it was eating out its strength 
and destroying all its fruit. And by this war God is pruning it. 
We are learning, we have learned, once for all, and thor- 
oughly, that our national salvation depends neither upon polit- 
ical sagacity, nor military strength, but solely on the protection 
of thq,t great Arm that ruleth in Zion ; that, indeed, all those ma- 
terial resources and social influences, we regarded as our strength, 
are, without the divine blessing, only so many elements of disas- 
ter ; that all these bonds of national union, we had pronounced in- 
dissoluble, this grand geographical unity, this intimate association 
of our broad industrial and commercial interests, this prouder part- 
nership in our land's blessed memories and glorious hopes ; yea, 
even that tenderer brotherhood of kith and kin, rocked in the same 
cradle, nourished in the some household ; that all these, and what- 
soever else had seemed as bands of triple steel round our beloved 
confederacy are but as a spider's web, when an incensed God turns 
away from us the light of His countenance. God is teach- 
ing us, not merely lessons of political wisdom, but, as well, great 
ethical and theological lessons, and he will bring us forth from the 
trial, as gold purified by the fire ; not the old, boastful unbeliev- 
ing nationality, but a reverent and christian people whose God is 
the Lord 1 Our vine was shooting forth rank branches of atheism 
and Jehovah is pruning it with his sharp knife — War ! 

Now, time would fail me to pursue this thought further. There 
are manifold other evils from which this war will deliver us ; but, 
inasmuch as they are either smaller or sectional, and obvious to 
every thoughtful man, we need not consider them. Indeed, we 
have brief space left for the remainder of our subject. Thus far, 
we have considered only the text's negative aspects — the evil 
growths of which the divine Husbandman is ji^'uning us. But the 
text has a positive, and not less important aspect — the improved 
fruit which, ivith pruning, the great vine will produce Of these 
overgrown branches "He purgeth it, that it may bring forth 
more frxiit." 



15 

Glancing, then, hastilj^ at some of the positive results this fear- 
ful war promises, we mention, 

First — A nobler style and type of manhood. 

This is indeed implied in what we have said of the qualities of 
character this conflict is developing. In this regard, the American 
vine bore precious fruit from the first. History has no nobler 
page than onr old colonial record — no story of truer heroism, of 
character better fitted by lofty qualities to do man's noblest work. 
Verily, God gathered out of Christendom the choicest specimens 
of the race to plant in this western husbandry. Yet it was but 
the old manhood after all. Every colonist remained still a part of 
his ancestral nationality. We were still distinct races ; each with 
its own father-land of grand hopes and memories. Wo were a con- 
glomerate of all peoples and not composite Americans. But even 
this we are now becoming. Fighting together for the same great 
ends, bearing each other's burdens, binding up each other's wounds, 
struggling and suffering together unto death, mingling tears and 
blood in one common conflict for a common home and heritage un- 
to children's children, we are fast becoming one people, with all 
our noblest affections rooted in the same common land of precious 
memories and glorious hopes. Through this sore fellowship of 
suffering we shall be hereafter a composite. And a priceless com- 
posite it will be — like the celebrated Corinthian brass, an amalgam 
of all metals — when the best qualities of the iron Saxon, the vola- 
tile Frenchman, the grave Spaniard, the reflective German, the 
effervescing Italian, and the warm-hearted Irishman shall be har- 
moniously blended in one type of American manhood. 

And doing this, as this fierce conflict is, and meanwhile, as we 
have seen, calling into play all our higher social instincts — instead 
of the greed, the craft, the sordid selfishness of avarice, substitut- 
ing the self-denial, the self-sacrifice, the lofty aims and ambition, 
the chivalrous daring of patriotism and soldiership — doing all this 
and more — it is evidently developing a style and strength of Ame- 
rican manhood, full of all noble and heroic impulses, worthy of 
our ancestry and traditions, in whose reckonings the accumulations 
of industry, the gains of commerce, the ends and aims of mean and 
selfish ambition ; yea, all life's smaller and lowlier things, yea, life 
itself, our own life, our children's life, will seem only as the dust of 



16 

the desert, when the stake of the mighty game is a great imperial 
and christian nationality. Surely, in this respect, will God's 
primed vine bring forth nobler fruit ! 

Secondly — It will bring forth a new style and type of civil free- 
dom. 

It is a popular mistake to regard liberty as one absolute and 
immutable thing. There are as many ideas and forms of liberty 
as of religion. There was the old patriarchal liberty and the 
old theocratic liberty, and the fierce old Grecian and the stern old 
feudal liberty. There is to-day, the old English liberty, and the 
French liberty, and the Swiss liberty, and the Central and South 
American liberty. And in this direction there has ever been pro- 
gress. After centuries of struggling with imperial despotisms, the 
race achieved for itself the grand old feudal liberty — a noble com- 
posite of historic growth — the equilibrium of immense and antag- 
onistic social forces — the harmony of compromise and counter- 
poise amid the mingling and mighty elements of state — a limited 
monarchy, a limited oligarchy, a limited democracy, all mutually 
modifying and moulding each other into grand forms of free social 
life. And this perhaps, till now, has philosophic statesmanship re- 
garded as the freest possible social system consistent with strong 
government ; and therefore as the last and best form of popular 
civil liberty. The fair old Grecian dream of true equality and fra- 
ternity, a condition of liberty without feudal antagonisms, a govern- 
ment tridy representative, republican — i. e. — absolute self-government 
— seemed in theory beautiful, but practically absurd. It might ob- 
tain for a time. It might work wonders for a brief season, and 
upon a narrow field, and amid serene pastoral holidays, but would 
surely be resolved into anarchy by the first wild ministry of conflict 
and storm. And therefore, in the opinions of wise men this new 
form of American liberty seemed destined to perish. European 
Sanballets mocked it with the old sneer : — " Wherefore do these 
men build ? Verily if a fox go up he will break down their stone 
wall." Nor had our American Nehemiahs much of the old pro- 
phetic hopefulness. From the last days of Washington, unto the 
days remembered by our chihlren did that noble race of states- 
men (alas they have passed away and left no succession !) lift up 
voices in solemn warning, enduring unto the end the taunt of 



17 

being " alarmists," and " union savers," just because they per- 
ceived that the very greatness of our liberty was its most terrible 
attribute, and believed that such storms of civil strife as the old 
staunch, kingly ships of state could weather, would drive our fairer 
but frailer bark hopelessly into shipwreck. Yes, and they died, 
every one of them, though in the fulness of their fame, yet with 
eyes dim and souls darkened in the shadow of evil things seemingly 
coming on their children. 

Indeed, for half a century, the great American heart has beaten 
intermittingly and convulsed under this dread incubus of Disunion. 
Men have felt, if they did not confess, the fear that the holy and 
beautiful house of our fathers, wherein are treasured all our 
blessed memories, and cradled all our glorious hopes, was built of 
brick piled without mortar, which the first throe of civil strife 
would rock hopelessly into ruin ; that though this self-government 
might serve our purpose in times of peace, and even lead us in 
triumph against all foreign aggression, yet it would bo blown hope- 
lessly into anarchy by the first fierce breath of a great civil con- 
vulsion. 

But how seems this thing now ? Why, we are this very hour 
governing ourselves even better than before, positively more scru- 
pulously law-abiding, more observant of all ordinances guard- 
ing property and life ; and this over a breadth of territory which 
no feudal despotism could control ; and in the face, yea, amid the 
very throes of the most terrible civil convulsion the world ever 
saw. Verily, the exhibition we have just made of our matchless 
franchises — calmly electing our Chief Magistrate amid the excite- 
ments of a war like this — with all our cabals and factions, and un- 
principled appeals and malignant attacks upon character, and the 
selfish ambition of leaders, and the roused passions of the masses, 
with our great cities filled with a reckless populace, and the land 
swarming with armed men ; and yet, the whole agitated nation, as 
quietly as before appealing and submitting to the decision of the 
ballot-box — this, I say, proves that an intelligent self-gov- 
ernment is possible in any and all popular conditions, and is 
positively the strongest and most steadfast of all governments ; 
that men born and bred with the most extravagant notions of civil 
freedom, are not driven into anarchy, but only compacted and con- 
solidated by great civil pressure ; that they will restrain them- 
selves, tax themselves, conscript themselves, yea, to the last farth- 

B 



18 

ing and drop of blood sacrifice themselves, yielding implicitly to 
that invisible thing — Law, moving, each in his own sphere, and 
achieving his own task, scrupulously observing all civil ordinan- 
ces and social customs, amid elements of convulsion that would 
have shaken into fragments the mightiest feudal despotism on the 
face of the earth ! 

We say then, this war is developing the last grand type of free 
government. It is dispelling all doubts as to its possibility and 
permanence. It is proving that the fair old Grecian liberty was 
not a distempered dream, but a divine type, yea, prophecy of the 
popular, civil perfection to which, in the latter day glory, 
christian manhood shall attain. Surely then, in this regard also, 
will God's war-pruned vine bring forth precious fruit. 

Thirdly — It will bring forth a new style of Christianity. 

After what has been already said you will not mis-understand 
me to speak of war as, self-considered, favorable to Christianity. 
On the contrary, we hold it to be a thing, evil, barbarous, brutal, 
infernal, between which, and the spirit of the Gospel of Christ, there 
can be only antagonism. Nevertheless, it is under this self-same 
law of antagonisms that God works out often His grandest purposes. 
And in this way only, do I speak of this war as developing chris" 
tianity. At first, indeed, this seemed impossible. We all heard, and 
felt, and blushed at the infidel clamor, that, if the nation on earth 
most thoroughly christianized, could thus be convulsed with civil 
strife, henceforth, the gospel must be reckoned a failure. Yes, and 
the gloomiest fear, at first, of the christian patriot was, like Eli's 
not for his country, nor for his kindred, but for the ark of his God. 
Nevertheless, we can now perceive how even Christianity will be 
shorn of no glory, but rather illustrated and magnified as it passes 
through this conflict. This illustration is manifold, 

\qI Xyi the christian character so frequently di^layed in a pat- 
riotic soldiery. 

Fi'om the wars of Abraham, and Moses, and David, history has 
Riothing to match with it ; and wc venture to predict that, when 
this (C'0»fji<et ifi ended, the biographies of these christian men dying 
for theiy ^owQtry will furnish the richest and most wonderful reli- 
gious literatwiVJ M church ever possessed. My limits forbid an 



19 

enlarged illustration of this thought. I can only read, in this con- 
nexion, some paragraphs of a letter written on the eve of a great 
battle, as a specimen of thousands which God^s grace inspired, and 
will not suffer to perish. It was addressed by Major Sullivan 
Ballon, of the Second Rhode Island Regiment, to his wife, the 
night before his departure for Manassas, where, on the following 
week he was killed. 

•• Camp Clark, Washington, July 14, 18G1. 

'• Mt Vert Dear Sarah : — The indications are tliat we shall move very 
soon, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write to you again, 1 
feel impelled now to write a few lines that may fall under your eyes when I 
shall be no more. Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full 
of pleasure, and it may be one of sorrow, conflict and death to me. " Lord 
not Tuy will but thine be done." If it is necessary that I should fall on the 
battle field for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack 
of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not 
halt or falter. I know how strongly American civilization now leans on the 
triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went 
before us, through the blood and suflering of the Revolution, and I am willing 
— perfectly willing — to lay down all my joys in this life to help to maintain 
this Government and pay that debt. But, my dear wife, when I know that 
with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life 
with cares and sorrows ; when, after having eaten, for long years, the bitter 
fruits of orphanage myself, I must offer it as the only sustenance to my dear 
little children, is it weak or dishonorable that, while the banner of my purpose 
floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, underneath mj unbounded love for 
you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce though useless 
contest with my love of country ? I cannot describe to you my feelings on 
this calm, summer, sabbath night, when thousands of men are sleeping around 
me, many of them no doubt enjoying the last sleep before that of death, while 
I am awed by the feeling that death is creeping around me with his fatal dart, 
as I sit communing with my God, my country and thee. I have sought, most 
closely and diligently and often, in my heart for a wrong motive in thus haz- 
arding the happiness of all those I love, and I could find none. A pure love of 
country, and of those i^rinciples which I have so often advocated before the 
people, — another name of honor that I love more than I fear death, has called 
upon me, and I have obeyed. 

" Sarah, my love for you is deathless ; it seems to bind me with mighty 
cables, that nothing but omnipotence could break ; and yet my love of country 
comes over me like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on, with all (hose 
claims, "to the battle field. The memory of all the blissful moments I have 
spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most grateful to God and to 
you that I have enjoyed them so long. And how hard it is for me to give them 
up, and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might 
still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grow up to honorable man- 



20 

hood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Provi- 
dence, but something whispers to me — perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little 
Edgar — that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not. my dear 
Sarah, never forget how much I loved you ; and when my last breath escapes 
me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults 
and the many pains I have caused you. How foolish, how thoughtless, I have 
oftentimes been. How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot 
upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortunes of this world to 
shield you and our children from harm, but I cannot. I must watch you from 
the spirit land, and hover near you while you buSet the storms with your pre- 
cious freight, and wait with patience till we meet to part no more. But, oh ! 
Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those 
they love, I shall always be near you ; in the gladdest day, in the darkest 
night ; amidst your happiest scenes and your gloomiest hours, always — always ; 
and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath ; or if the 
cool air fans your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah, 
do not mourn me dead, but think I am gone and waiting for thee — for we shall 
meet again. As for my little boys, they will grow up as I have done, and 
never know a father's love or care. Little Willie is too young to remember me 
long ; and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dim 
memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your ma- 
ternal care, and your development of their characters, and I feel that God will 
bless you in your holy work. Tell my two mothers that I call God's blessing 
upon them. Oh, Sarah, come to me, and lead thither my two children. 

My wife, farewell, 

Sullivan. " 

I will Bot trust myself to read more of these letters. The whole 
land is full of them. They are preserved as precious memorials, 
not of human love merely, but of love sanctified by God's grace ; 
and when the christian soldiership they illustrate shall be em- 
balmed in the richest biographies of earth, then will the his- 
tory of this conflict be glorified by them, and the very gospel of 
peace and love bo magnified in them 1 Surely the dying song of 
old martyrdom went up to heaven from dungeon and stake no 
more triumi)hantly eloquent of that gospel's blessed power than 
the farewell and dying words of such christian patriots ! Mean- 
while the gospel is magnified, 

2ndly — In the christian sjnrit which this tear is developing, in 
new agencies of benevolence ! 

Ilere too, my limits forbid more than a single illustration. 
Take this " Christian Conuuission," in whose behalf you are asked 
this day to contribute — a miraculous creation surely of practical 



21 

clirlstianity ! — a grand evangelical and philanthroi)ic organization 
at once catholic and national — the whole church of Christ of every 
name united in behalf of the soldiery of every State and section, 
embracing in its charities, navies of hundreds of vessels, and 
armies of a million of men, and extending its operations along a 
war line of three thousand miles, and all this mighty christian ma- 
chinery working voluntarily — its officers and offices and store-rooms, 
and the regulated freedom of 20,000 miles of railway, and 20,000 
miles of telegraph, and all government vessels, and the service of 
more than 1,500 christian ministers and laj'men, and the immense 
supplies distributed, freely received, freely given I Verily, here 
is a grand catholic and national christian development in a sphere 
and on a scale which is a new thing upon the earth. 

Behold these christian men and women in camps, and hospitals, 
and battle fields, ministering, with all a brother's, a sister's, a 
mother's love, alike to body and soul not only of friends, but ene- 
mies — going forth to the very men who, perhaps an hour before, 
stood armed against themselves, their beloved ones, their country, 
lifting them tenderly, bearing them gently to sheltered places, wip- 
ing away their tears, their blood, binding up their wounds, assuag- 
ing their agony ; receiving, in behalf of the living, their last mes- 
sages of affection, and pointing their departing spirits to the great 
and gracious Redeemer ! Yea, behold those glorious prayer-meet- 
ings I Observe those precious religious books and tracts, takino- 
the place of the vile old literature of the camp ! Hearken to those 
earnest gospel sermons, those resounding hymns of praise to God, 
superseding the old bacchanal songs of battle — and all upon fields 
torn with shot and shell, and hi the very face of advancing squad- 
rons ! Behold, in a word, all this softening of the horrors of war, 
in ways and with a power, of which philanthropy never dreamed 
— this positive carrying of the gospel of peace, in all its celestial 
loveliness into the wildest tides of the battle, and then tell me if 
here be not truly a new development of Christianity, and if that 
gospel which hath hitherto achieved such triumphs in scenes of 
blessed peace, is not now gathering trophies of more wonderful 
beauty and power, in the dark and deadly sphere of war's frenzied 
antagonisms ! 

And thus, and otherwise is chi'istianity shewing itself, even now, 
in new forms and power in this strange field of its ministries — like 
an angel from heaven revealed in fairer splendor and strength, be- 



22 

cause of tlie wild night and devouring tempest that surround it. 
And when, in that surely coming hour, so longed for and besought, 
these great armies humanized, evangelized by this heavenly minis- 
try, shall return from this strife — not, as of old armies came, pro- 
fane, dissolute, insubordinate, to fill the land with violence, and 
pollute the airs of heaven with songs, ribald and blasphemous — 
but armies of self-governing, self-denying. God-fearing, law-abiding 
men, making the earth fairer w^ith their peaceful ministries, and 
heaven's air pure and sweet with the breath of praise in these old 
songs of Zion — bearing back that old banner borne in triumph 
through a hundred fights, and never lowered to a foe, yet with all 
its unfaded, undivided, constellated stars, to be cast down in 
humble acknowledgment of God's sovereignty, as a glorious tro. 
phy at the foot of the cross — returning with sword and spear, not 
to be suspended, as blood-stained trophies of old conflict, in embla- 
zoned halls, but to be transformed, even by the warrior's mighty 
hand, into implements of peaceful life — beaten into ploughshare 
and pruning-hook for the blessed uses of piety — then, surely then, 
it will appear that Christianity, which before had dwelt in spheres 
of peace, holding its serene way beside bright waters which no tern, 
pest stirred, did walk at last a nobler path, and win braver spoils, 
as it lifted a heavenly voice amid the thunders of war, and poured 
light as from angel wings along the black surges of battle ! Surely 
in this respect, as well, will God's war-pruned vine bring forth 
more and better fruit. 

But we must pause here with our illustrations. We have been 
considering some of the more obvious ways in which divine love 
seems overruling this awful conflict for our ultimate national good 
— some simple reasons why we are not to regard this war as God's 
axe at the root of our national life, but rather as God's pruning- 
knife among the overgrown branches, in illustration and fulfilment 
of that great law of husbandry : — " Every branch that heareth fruit, 
He j^ur'geth it, that it may bring forth morefruitJ' 

And let these simple thoughts serve to lighten our load of ap- 
prehension and deepen the cadencies of our songs of thanksgiving ! 
Surely our grand national life is not ended ; nay, it is as yet 
scarcely begun, and all these sharp conflicts it is enduring arc only 
the necessary antagonisms in the development of strength for its 
higher walk and work ! Hitherto, our young land hath been, like 
Jesse's youthful son, delighting, with shepherd's crook to keep 



23 

sweet pastoral holiday ; but destined too, like David, to move in 
loftier spheres and wield imperial influences, it must, like him, en- 
dure, in the face of the Philistine host, the stem discipline of 
battle ! 

We judge, alike from divine providences in the past, and divine 
prophecies of the future, that we have been raised up as a nation, 
as the great instrument of the world's civil and spiritual regenera- 
tion, and therefore believe that through this terrible military disci- 
pline God is fitting us for the last great conflict of liberty and 
Christianity against the despotisms of the world. Sure we are that, 
if we do not perish hopelessly in the struggle, we shall come forth 
from it in possession of a power, and with a record of achievement 
which the monarchs of the world will not dare to despise. And 
verily it needed just this great demonstration, of our inalienable 
right not only, but of our inherent power of self-government — this 
stern wakening from long, sweet, pastoral dreams — this girding on 
of armor — this marshalling of countless men — this triumph of the 
old flag, the old patriotism, the old undivided, unparalysed, indom- 
itable national life over an antagonism, compared with which, all 
foreign aggression were as nothing. It needed just this, I say, to 
teach a gazing and gainsaying world, that, ordained of God unto a 
grand philanthropic mission unto all people, ours is as well the re- 
sistless power as the fixed purpose to accomplish it in the face of, 
or if need be, against all the antagonisms of earth ! And when, in 
God's own time, chastened into purer life and storm-beaten into 
vaster strength by this sharp and sore discipline, with a navy im- 
perial on the water, and an army whose measured tiead shakes the 
land, and, floating over all upon land and sea, that old banner in 
its place of pride, not a star gone from its field of unstained azure 
this mighty nation shall set forth afresh on its triumphal progress ; 
then shall we and a wondering world understand the hidden mean- 
ing of divine love in this terrible discipline, and perceive and ac- 
knowledge that God's blows arc in mercy, that He chastens for pro- 
fit, that " He purgeth the vine only that it may bring forth more 
fruit." 

So at least, would we fondly hope, on this day consecrated to the 
sweeter and fairer moods of thanksgiving. And in befltting frames 
would we rest here this hallowed hour, not forlorn as under the 
prophet's withering gourd, but exulting as under God's great vine 
of the centuries — thankful for the present — hopeful for the future 



24 

— rejoicing before God with " the joy of harvest." And when here 
in our sanctuary, as the Jew on Mount Zion, we have paid our 
vows to the Most High in loving consecration, then, as he returned 
to his distant hDme, filling the soft airs of Palestine with glad 
songs, and waking all its echoes with bounding feet, so let us go 
forth again to our pleasant homes — dwellings hallowed by divine 
goodness, by the words and ministries of love, by memorials ten- 
derly sad, it may be, but cherished and heavenly of the beloved 
dead — to those firesides where children play — to those boards 
where kinsfolk gather, and happy voices blend — dismissing from our 
souls all anxious cares, driving out every reptile of discontent, 
every bird of evil omen from our bowers of peace, untroubled, rest- 
ful, loving, joyous ; for the present, thankful, because it is our 
own : for the future, trustful, becanse it is God's ! 



